thirtyfootscrew

Let me know how you get on, I'm going there in March so it'd be useful to have a heads-up. Any bar/restaurant recommendations would be cool too! Cheers, Ash.

I also like caching in graveyards, it's nice to look at the inscriptions on the headstones of people who died hundreds of years ago, Deneye had it right... Sometimes the inscriptions tell stories and from looking a many graves you can piece together a story from times gone by. Some may regard this as disrespectful but I believe the opposite to be true, negligence is a form of disrespect and the few graveyard caches I've done take you to old graves not recent ones. I hope that in 200 years time my grave is visited by some random people (probably wearing aluminim foil and space-helments by then) and that they'll think about days gone by. I might even request a headstone with a stash-box in it for caching, plus a plot with little or no tree cover!

Not tried that but I bought the VFR (getmapping.com) scenery for MS Flight Sim, that's quite good. I'm not really into flight-sims but I had a copy of FS2004 and the VFR disks are on sale in Game at the moment (£10 each or 3-for-2, there are 4 regions). I managed to fly over a couple of places I know, the resolution's not brilliant but it's quite fun.

Has anyone seen any info about the mapping capabilities of the Gizmondo? I assume it has the ability upload waypoints, etc.

I know this has been dead for a while but I thought I'd add my experience, I'm what people tend to refer to as a 'techie' and I'd agree with wildlifewriter that if you're not sure what you're doing here it's best not to try (given the cost of the products). I unzipped all the files and 'Merged' the .REG file as instructed, I then ran Mapsource only to find the the error message informing me of a problem and telling me to reinstall mapsource. The problem was caused by my having named the directory c:\program files\garmin\contour when it should have been c:\program files\garmin\contours, quite an important distinction. After that, everything was fine. It's vital that you use this exact path if you want to use the .REG file. I uploaded some maps to my GPSr (Vista B&W) and everything was fine, base-map and all. Quite impressive results too. Thanks to wildlifewriter for the instructions.

I'm not so bothered about getting Lymes, more about gatting ticks, they're 'orrible! I'm not the worlds biggest fan of insects, particularly the kind that stick things in you (Bees, Wasps, Ticks, etc). Saw bees today, looks like the summer's approaching fast.

Now that you guys have made me so paranoid that I don't want to leave the house again, can anyone tell me where you find ticks? Geographically and what hat sort of environment? Cheers.

Yeah, I'm with that definitely - would make life a lot easier.

Well I think it takes all sorts, I generally prefer 'proper' caches with decent sized containers but micros have their place. I rarely trade items these days and I don't pick up many TBs so I don't need large containers to trade / drop. Micros are perfect for urban / suburban caches (Simply Paul was right about Oxford) and with more and more being placed they are less likely to be muggled so I'm all for them. The other benefit of micros and small caches placed along towpaths, etc. is that they can make a good route. I do 95% of my caching on foot so make a 6 - 12 mile walk out of a caching trip, micros enable more caches to be placed in busy areas so it means I have more to find on my route (usually a round trip).

I've never set-up / been to an event before so I wouldn't be the best person to do the listing but I will definitely be there on the Friday.

I'll be there on the Friday too, not sure what time but I was there for a good few hours last time, I don't drive so it may be hard to reach any local caches though.

Cheers Dave, I'd have probably missed that one - all I ever seem to do these days is read these forums! Cheers, Ash.

You can pick up the basic B&W Vista for around £240 these days, I think it's great. If you're not buying one for a while you could wait until the Outdoors Show on at the NEC in March, they'll have models to look at and salespeople there.

Well I for one will keep it shared for as long as needs be. My PC's off in the day but on most evenings.

I'd be interested in seeing the vid too, I'll miss Countryfile as I'm away this weekend - if someone posts it online somewhere it'd be great.

I did GCGAM3 and GC6A90, other than caches - the Carlsberg Brewery is interesting (but not as good as the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam), you can get Carlsberg Dark in Denmark which is nice. Also, the Tycho Brahe Planetarium is quite good - it shows IMAX films as well as a little tour of the night sky.

This has kept me occupied for a while in the past: The Kevin Bacon Game

Thanks for the review, I'll hold off for now I think - besides, that pesky voice inside my head is telling me get a PDA and Memory Map. Unfortunately the pesky voice behind the bank manager's desk tells me not to. I'll just go away and have a few pints of cask-conditioned medicine instead, at least it makes the voices stop!

Some kind of local detector that beeps when in close proximity to the cache would be pretty handy - the Ghostbusters had the right idea...

I went to The Outdoors Show last year, the only bit I saw that was specifically about geocaching was a company that trains people in the use of GPS devices, their presentation mentioned geocaching as an 'aside' in their talk on GPS and digital mapping. Memory Map and Anquet had quite good stalls last year I seem to remember and the OS stall was good, you could have custom maps printed.

Is anyone planning to go to The Outdoors Show or the Outdoor Adventure Show this year? The Outdoor Adventure Show is running from 18th - 20th February at the Olympia in London. (http://www.outdooradventureshow.co.uk/) The Outdoors Show is running from 18th - 20th March at the Birmingham NEC. (http://www.theoutdoorsshow.co.uk/) I'll definitely be going to the one in March at the NEC, I'm not sure about the February one. Anyway, the point of the post is - if anyone's going and you feel like meeting up for a beer then reply to this thread. I'm not sure if it'd warrant an event cache and I've no idea how one is setup. If not, I'll be the one on my own in the corner of the nearest pub clutching a freebie Garmin pen & brochure and a pint!

I have a Garmin Etrex Vista with the Mapsource Metroguide (street-level mapping) and personally I love it. It may be a bit clunky but as I do all of my caching on foot and by public transport I am always walking into, through and out of towns / villages. In this respect the mapping is great because you can see which way to go and where you'll end up. Sadly it doesn't show footpaths so you're a bit stuck there. Besides the above advertiser-like garb if I had to choose between Mapping OR a Digital Compass (i.e. a mid-level GPS unit) then I'd probably go for the compass - it's invaluable and you can always buy OS maps. The mapping was very useful wandering around Copenhagen though.

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere (I couldn't find it), but I noticed the other day that Garmin's Metroguide Europe 6 is out. My GPS came with version 5, I've updated the Mapsource software (see Garmin site) but I was wondering if anyone knows of any major changes to the mapping? I'm only really bothered about the UK mapping so if there have been no changes then I won't even entertain the idea but if there are new features (footpaths would be like manna from heaven) then I'd consider getting it. Cheers, Ash. (thirtyfootscrew).

Thirtyfootscrew has been my general internet handle for ages now, from my website to ebay, to seti@home to Xbox Live so it made perfect sense to use the same handle everywhere I go. It's not that I want to hide my identity from you guys, I just want to hide it from 'them', you know - 'THEM'. Not that I'm paranoid or anything. Am I? You don't think I'm paranoid do you?

Well, I usually take something like cereal bars or flapjacks but my favourite food to eat 'on the go' is probably leftover cold pizza from last night's takeaway. I suppose I've got to put back the calories I lose whilst walking!